HOUSING AND OFFICE IN VICENZA
da L'INDUSTRIA DELLE COSTRUZIONI n. 288 october 1995
di Mario Pisani
Mirko Amatori is already well known to our readers for his meticulously accomplischd works, which besides having a spacious architectonic layout in keeping with the best international examples, also have carefully detailed finisches adopting thoughfully employed materials.
The architect continues to punctuate this city where he mainly operates with his emblematic interventions which deserve an attentive look.
The latest in Via Cengio il located in an unused area where formally there stood a manufacturing estate close to the city's old walls and its gateways which date back to the 11 th. century.
The zone in a recent proposal by Gino Valle was disegnated to undergo a profound renovation.
Precisely Valle's plan, (after many idiological proposals merely dressed up to abstractly resemble a town planning scheme), which belongs instead to a science which programmes the usage of a city into a buolt construct, indicates a return to certain classical urban configurations, mainly those which where typical of nineteenth century districts having buildings aligned along the streets with their trees which led into 'piazzas'. It accommodates office managemente and service activities. This volume "closes" the plot forming a scenographic backdrop, being a wall with openings only serves to provide a perimeter enclosure. Whereas on the opposite side there is a row of office blocks.
The author evokes recollections of historical city layouts in which an important 'palazzo' was a representative presence obviously overlooking the street, and the portico filters the passageway which also leads to the internal countyards adn lesser scale buildings. This image shapes the architecnonic composition modelling the office management building with large arches which delineate the size of the portico, conceived to "stop" people as the pass by so that they may look at the goods displayed in the shop windows. There is a small piazza which opens in the centre of the volume. Whereas, a compact fabrica also with porticoes below leads into ad internal courtyard below leads into an internal countyard which is overlooked by single residential units. Everything is dimensioned to follow those harmonic proportions which are customary in the Veneto region, due to the influence of Venice. These are expressed through blank wall back drops, porticoes beneath the building volumes and passageway alleys. The long narrow building volume also recalls a traditional Venetian configuration having an asymmetrical plan in relation to the main alignments. It reminds of a "small scale" Venetian hause typology supported on tall columns, providing a forceful impact due to its elementary construct, which has almost become a characteristic house archetype.